Traditional Chinese music

Subject: Traditional Chinese music
From: Kim C
Date: 24 Jan 03 - 04:14 PM

Mister and I went to see the Shaolin Monks' "Wheel of Life" show a couple of weeks ago. On stage they had three musicians - one playing a flute, one playing a lute sort of thing, and another playing a bowed instrument that resembled a cello, but was shaped differently. We both agreed, we wished we could find something like that on CD, but since we know absolutely nothing about Chinese music, we don't know where to start. I looked at Amazon.com., but didn't come away very enlightened.

Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks!

Subject: RE: Traditional Chinese music
From: Sorcha
Date: 24 Jan 03 - 04:30 PM

You might try this.....

Subject: RE: Traditional Chinese music
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Jan 03 - 04:58 PM

Here in Arlington, Texas, a group called the Four Seasons Choral Society performed at the holiday program in December for the Friends of the university Library. They were very good, but like a lot of local groups, struggle to get all members to rehearsals, let alone manage to make recordings. Many of them are engineers and professionals in the local aerospace industries. It would be wonderful if they did record. Much of what was performed was Chinese, but there were a few English language songs also. I was really impressed with a rendition of "Jingle Bells," because it was performed on insruments tuned to a different scale than the western one and they had to make adjustments to make it work. Came out sounding like it was in a slightly minor key.

The instruments they played were great to listen to and lovely to look at. There was one that appeared to be a Chinese version of the hammered dulcimer, but I have no information about the history of these instruments. Please post your search results here, Kim!

SRS

Subject: RE: Traditional Chinese music
From: Kim C
Date: 24 Jan 03 - 05:04 PM

Thanks Sorcha. That looks like fun!

At Borders Books you can listen to a lot of the CDs before you buy them - if we can get over there one of these days, we're going to see what they have.

Everybody knows Chinese New Year is next weekend, right?!

Subject: RE: Traditional Chinese music
From: p.j.
Date: 24 Jan 03 - 05:21 PM

I'm going Sunday to see a group called Melody Of China
at the Herbst theater in San Francisco. Check out their website, it has some very nice pages about traditional Chinese instruments and music.

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

p.j.

Subject: RE: Traditional Chinese music
From: Kim C
Date: 24 Jan 03 - 05:43 PM

Great! That's exactly what I was looking for.

Personally, I sorta like Chow Yun-Fat myself... ;-)

Subject: RE: Traditional Chinese music
From: masato sakurai
Date: 24 Jan 03 - 06:50 PM

Search The Internet Chinese Music Archive too.

~Masato

Subject: RE: Traditional Chinese music
From: RangerSteve
Date: 24 Jan 03 - 07:21 PM

Try looking for CDs by a lute player by the name of Wu Man. She plays an instrument with a pear shaped body, I don't remember what it's called, but she's very good, playing traditional and traditional-sounding tunes.

Subject: RE: Traditional Chinese music
From: Kim C
Date: 27 Jan 03 - 10:23 AM

I think it's called a pipa. I found a CD over the weekend by a woman named Shao Rong. It's contemporary music, but very nice all the same.